German Ambassador to Pakistan Teaches us Islam

The German Ambassador to Pakistan is a Great persona and has many Admirer's and he is very Famous on his twitter handle in Pakistan as https://twitter.com/koblerinpak

Martin Kobler (born 1953 in Stuttgart) is a German career diplomat who is the current German Ambassador to Pakistan. He also served as Special Representative, Head of United Nations Support Mission in Libya from November 4th 2015 to June 22nd of 2017.

He also previously served as Special Representative for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June 2013. In this capacity, he headed more than 20,000 peacekeepers in the country.

He is Famous for his Activities and the other day he and his son taught Islam to Pakistan , he taught us the value of conservations of Environment and Cleanliness and less waste of Natural Resources as mentioned in Quran although he himself is not a Muslim but he is better than countless Pakistani Mullahs who don't teach these Aspects to us …

He is an example to the useless Mullah we have in Pakistan like the Rewind and Mansoura Waste we have . who have nothing but hate to Practice Hate

He showed us how to Clean the Car by using a Bucket and not wasting water and also how to conserve this Previous Natural Resources as Picture below

Recently he showed us Value of Cleanliness as we say that Cleanliness is Half of our faith / Iman in Islam we Profess to follow this religion and Quran but almost 99% of Pakistani and 100 % of Mullahs don't actually Believe in Quran and islam this aspect of cleanliness

The Honorable Ambassador of Germany and his son , took out to vist the Abapara Market Islamabad and also started to Clean it and in front of countess Bystanders who are so called Muslim but they really don't adhere to this principle of cleanliness and saving the Environment .

The Honorable Ambassador who taught so many Valuable things to Pakistanis has sadly left for Germany after his retirement Age came at 60 on April 2019 and was given a Warm Send off and now is in German and would be sadly Missed by Pakhtons and also the Pakistanis .

CPEC is Dead ?

Pakistan’s political and military leadership, and business elite, have stopped investing their capital in CPEC. Now how do we get out of it? 1 August 2019 It’s over. If ever there was a thought within Pakistan’s leadership — political, military, and business — that Beijing could replace Washington as the foreign capital with the most influence in Islamabad, that idea is now firmly dead. We just have not gotten around to telling China yet.

Over the past few weeks, Profit has spoken to several sources in both Pakistan’s business elite circles as well as people who are familiar with the thought process of the military leadership and the picture emerging is not a favourable one of the relationship with China:

the more Pakistanis learn about the true costs of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the less inclined they are to want to participate any further than we already have. If anything, the signal coming from the country’s establishment appears to be that, far from pivoting Pakistan’s economic and political orientation towards China, Pakistan should retain its historical role as the country that is able to balance its relationship with both China and the United States.

This emerging consensus — particularly within the military leadership — represents a subtle but important shift in the relationship with Beijing. Pakistan stared long and hard at the costs and benefits of becoming an integral part of what Beijing hopes will become the new Pax Sinica world order, and found it wanting.

For all its flaws, Pax Americana still offers Pakistan a good deal. Nobody in Pakistan’s leadership wants to offend China, but nobody wants to bend over backwards to become a Chinese satellite state either. Why CPEC is a raw deal The biggest difference between the Pax Sinica and Pax Americana is one of how each superpower defines its own self-interest.

The United States, though far from perfect, has a somewhat more enlightened view of the world order and America’s place in it: at least until the advent of President Donald Trump, the United States wanted to create a world order which is designed to benefit both the United States and its allies.

China it seems, by contrast, wants to build a world order where China’s needs are met first and foremost, and the rest of the world’s needs — including those of its allies — are at best secondary considerations, and at worst, not even considerations at all. We will explain why we think this difference exists, and how it impacts Pakistan, but first, it is important to recognise why it may have developed in the first place.

 The United States started becoming a powerful country in the 1890s as its wealth grew, but in the early years, the US did not make the effort to translate that wealth into significant military power, though it developed increasingly sophisticated military capabilities over the next 50 years. By the end of World War II, however, the United States was not just the richest country in the world, it was richer than the rest of the world combined. (Seriously, for over 10 years following the war, the United States accounted for over half of global GDP.)

It was also, despite some threats from the Soviet Union, more powerful militarily than the rest of the world. It was in that heady moment of near absolute power that the United States stumbled into having to create Pax Americana, never having fully wanted a globally dominant role, and never having historically seen itself as the arbiter and guarantor of global peace and stability.

That absolute power gave America a confidence that is unrivaled in history, and the accidental nature of its arrival in power allowed it to be generous with those who were losing it. As a result, the system that the United States designed — the Bretton Woods institutional order, the Marshall Plan, etc. — were all designed to enable mutually beneficial relationships between Washington and its allies.

America was unquestionably the leader, but it was a confident leader that did not feel the need to thump its chest and point out that it was the leader.

China, by contrast, is arriving at its Great Power status in a very different set of circumstances. We tend to speak of the ‘rise’ of China, but the truth is that for most of human history, China has been the richest and most powerful country on earth.

 The past three hundred years where this has not been the case are actually a historical anomaly, and, from the Chinese perspective, an embarrassing interregnum from which they must recover. In other words, China is not merely stumbling into Great Power status: it wants it, it believes it deserves it, and it will brook no opposition to getting what it wants.

The system that China has designed, therefore, is geared towards a completely different goal: unlike the United States, which was comfortable sharing its wealth and power as a means of growing wealth for both itself and its allies, China wants to create a global system where wealth and power flow in the direction of China as a means of strengthening it relative to its main rival (the United States), even if that means weakening its allies in the process.

This latter system has obvious flaws from the perspective of Pakistan, which has seen itself as one of modern China’s oldest and staunchest allies. The deal that Islamabad is getting from Beijing in the form of CPEC looks impressive from a distance, but is in fact far from a mutually beneficial relationship.

CPEC makes British colonialism in South Asia look generous by comparison. The flaws in CPEC The biggest so-called mystery about CPEC is as follows: if CPEC was supposed to be such a huge bonanza for Pakistan in terms of investment, which is it not showing up in the foreign direct investment (FDI) numbers?

Why is Pakistan’s current account balance still negative? In fact, why is Pakistan’s current account balance actually getting worse? The answer is relatively straightforward: because CPEC is not an investment into Pakistan, it is structured as a resource extraction exercise.

Here is how it works:

China announces that it has invested in a project in Pakistan worth, let’s say $1 billion. That $1 billion, however, is required to mostly be spent on Chinese equipment, and labour, a significant portion of which is to be imported from China as well, with very little by way of supplies coming from the local economy.

That $1 billion, therefore, never hits Pakistan’s economy as an investment. It is $1 billion that goes from the Chinese government or state-owned company to a state-owned company within China to pay for equipment.

 Even the Chinese labour gets its salaries deposited into bank accounts within China. The money, in other words, stays completely within China and so never shows up as foreign investment into Pakistan.

Where it does show up is in the trade statistics: that $1 billion of equipment will show up as an import, against which Pakistan will have to arrange foreign currency from somewhere.

And it will show up as a liability on the balance sheets of whichever company or government entity is contracting with the Chinese government or state-owned company.

Let us recap what we get and what China gets out of this so-called $1 billion investment. China gets:

$1 billion in sales for a Chinese state-owned company ·

 $1 billion in new loans for a Chinese state-owned bank at very high interest rates

Pakistan gets: · $0 in investment ·

$1 billion in imports and increase in net trade deficit ·

$1 billion in liabilities for a Pakistani company or government entity

As is evident from the above, this is an arrangement designed purely to benefit one party and that party is not Pakistan.

 It could still work out in Pakistan’s favour if the economic value of the asset being built was greater than the $1 billion in liabilities taken on to build it.

Unfortunately, more often than not, it is far from clear as to whether that is the case. This example cited above, by the way, is not hypothetical. It is actually showing up in Pakistan’s macroeconomic numbers.

Pakistan’s imports from China have dramatically increased since 2013, when CPEC was first announced.

Prior to 2013, Pakistan’s imports from China had been rising because of the 2007 China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement, but had stabilized to around $6.6 billion a year.

After 2013, the rise has been very steep. We estimated how much of that is CPEC-related by assuming that the pre-2013 levels of imports from China can be categorized as the “normal” level and the amounts above that are broadly CPEC-related. By our calculations, using data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, we estimate that Pakistan’s CPEC-related imports have come to $31 billion over the past six years.

Does that number sound familiar? It is very close to the number that was originally touted as the total economic value of CPEC’s “fast-track” projects. The government of China was not lying when they said CPEC would be worth that much.

They just left out to whom. The actual investment flows from China during that time have been higher than in the past, it is true, but still relatively smaller compared to this other method.

Since 2013, China’s net investment into Pakistan has been $2.5 billion, much higher than the $813 million China invested in Pakistan in the 10 years prior to 2013, but still a relatively small sum compared to the wild projections and promises that the Pakistani press and government wanted to believe when it was first announced.

The shift in Pakistani thinking While Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership is prone to making bad decisions, they are not completely stupid. They can see these numbers, and they are privy to far more details than have been told to the public about the specific terms of the agreements with China for CPEC projects.

And it is becoming increasingly clear that they are becoming deeply uncomfortable with the direction this has taken Pakistan. Neither the civilian politicians nor the military leadership want to accept the blame for what is clearly a massive blunder on the part of the government of Pakistan in negotiating the CPEC contracts.

 If any lawyers reviewed them, it is unclear if they understood them, or if their views were taken into consideration at all by the decision-makers. (Hint: there is a reason why good lawyers in the United States are rich:

American businesses are willing to pay big money to them to help avoid precisely this kind of massive blunder. It is an investment well worth it.) The deed is done now, however, and Pakistan cannot easily extricate itself from these arrangements. But, sources familiar with the military leadership’s thinking tell Profit, the leadership in the military has decided to start following the first rule of being in a hole: stop digging.

A public renunciation of CPEC would be too embarrassing for the government — both the politicians and the Army — but they are certainly not willing to undertake any further agreements with the government of China.

According to one source, one factor that helped influence the military leadership came when even the military-owned FWO was subjected to exploitative lending contracts by Chinese state-owned companies for construction of CPEC infrastructure projects.

It may not be worth risking the relationship with China to try to wriggle out of those contracts, but it was enough to disabuse the top brass of the notion that CPEC would be part of a mutually beneficial relationship with China.

That reluctance to dive into further CPEC-related projects is on display in Pakistan’s business leadership’s decision as well. Take Engro, for instance. In 2016, it appeared that the company was going to jump in head on into the CPEC-related energy projects and direct significant investment towards them.

However, in the ensuing three years, Engro appears to have changed course: while it is continuing its investment in Thar Coal energy projects, those are in partnership with the Sindh government. And it is not considering any additional investments in CPEC-linked areas.

CPEC is dead. What comes next? Slowly but surely, CPEC will die off as a talking point in the government of Pakistan and as a topic of conversation in the media.

But the government of Pakistan is still stuck with the agreements they have already signed, and with the expectations they have raised in Beijing that CPEC will be a showcase for the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for China.

Those expectations will now need to be tempered. Sources familiar with the military leadership’s thought process on the matter say that the military — which sets the foreign policy agenda in Pakistan — is now contemplating a return to the pre-CPEC Pakistani foreign policy of serving as one of the few countries that was able to balance an alliance with both the United States and China.

That is likely easier said than done, however. Firstly, China is not in the mood to play second-fiddle to the United States anymore, in Islamabad or anywhere else in the world.

This current Chinese government — under President Xi Jinping — is considerably more assertive than it has ever been in the past. They are unlikely to take kindly to Pakistan scaling back its share of the commitment to CPEC.

 And secondly, Pakistan had made a very overt turn towards Beijing and away from Washington. The United States is not exactly in the mood to have Pakistan back as an ally either, at least not without significant concessions on Pakistan’s part.

It is unclear whether Pakistan will be willing to make all of those concessions, but it is at least a conversation they will have to consider if the pivot back towards Pakistan’s historic foreign policy arrangements are to be successful. Sources familiar with the matter say that the government of Pakistan has already made initial overtures to the United States and made it clear that Islamabad’s pivot towards Beijing has effectively been cancelled.

Those overtures certainly did not hurt as Pakistan negotiated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its 12th bailout in three decades. What does this mean for the Pakistani economy? Pakistan’s business leadership — accustomed as it is to the ways of Britain and the United States — has always been significantly more comfortable staying in the Pax Americana orbit than it ever was going to be in Pax Sinica.

Think about it: would the typical Pakistani business executive send their child to Harvard or to Tsinghua University?

 Are Pakistani executives likely to be comfortable negotiating with their American or European counterparts or would they be comfortable seeking approval for everything they do from Zhongnanhai?

Is a Pakistani general more comfortable in Sandhurst and West Point or whatever the Chinese equivalent is? In material terms, the direction of the Pakistani economy is unlikely to be too dissimilar from what it has been in our history.

Pakistan’s single largest export market is the United States and the largest geography to which it exports is the European Union.

Investment flows from the US and Europe dwarf — even in the CPEC era — anything that China ever invested in Pakistan. But in terms of what the future direction of the country could have been, this will be very different.

It will mean all of those people learning Mandarin can either stop or continue knowing that it will likely just be a curiosity rather than an economic need. It will mean that Pakistani businesses can stop pretending to have a CPEC strategy. And it will mean that the supposed disentanglement from the US-dominated global financial system need not happen. The more things change, the more they stay the same.




- See more at: http://southasiajournal.net/cpec-is-dead-somebody-tell-beijing/

Countering Militancy in FATA

 Executive Summary and recommendations

The military operation in South Waziristan is unlikely to succeed in curbing the spread of religious militancy in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), unless the Pakistan government implements political reforms in that part of the country. Pakistani Taliban groups have gained significant power in the tribal agencies, seven administrative districts bordering on Afghanistan. While state institutions in FATA are increasingly dysfunctional, the militants have dismantled or assumed control of an already fragile tribal structure. This encroaching Talibanisation is not the product of tribal traditions or resistance. It is the result of short-sighted military policies and a colonial-era body of law that isolates the region from the rest of the country, giving it an ambiguous constitutional status and denying political freedoms and economic opportunity to the population. While the militants’ hold over FATA can be broken, the longer the state delays implementing political, administrative, judicial and economic reforms, the more difficult it will be to stabilize the region.
Badly planned and poorly coordinated military operations, followed by appeasement deals, have accommodated militant recruitment and actions, enabling Pakistani Taliban groups to expand their control over the region. Many militants, including commanders fleeing military operations in Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP)’s Malakand division, have also relocated to FATA. Instead of a sustained attempt to dismantle and destroy the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) network – led by Baitullah Mehsud until his death on 5 August 2009 in a U.S. drone attack and now by his deputy Hakimullah Mehsud – the military continues to rely on a two-pronged approach of sporadic strikes and negotiations with militant groups. Given that such operations are, by the military’s own admission, restricted, militant networks are ultimately able to absorb the blows even as indiscriminate damage alienates the local population caught in the crossfire.
The current military operation may well be a more extensive attempt to root out the Baitullah Mehsud network in South Waziristan but it remains an incomplete effort and could even prove counterproductive because of parallel efforts to reach or consolidate peace deals with rival TTP groups. It has yet to show that it will be directed at the Afghanistan Taliban or al-Qaeda strongholds. It has also already spurred a new round of internally displaced persons (IDPs) with little to show that the country has planned for that eventuality.
More than a million FATA residents already have been displaced by the conflict, mostly from Bajaur agency in the north and Waziristan in the south. Ongoing military operations in Khyber agency have forced as many as 100,000 to flee to safer locations in NWFP. While the military restricts domestic and international humanitarian access to FATA’s conflict zones, neither the Pakistan government nor the international community has addressed the full costs of the conflict to civilians. Mala­kand’s IDPs have justifiably received considerable domestic and international attention, but the needs of FATA’s IDPs are yet to be addressed.
Militant violence and military operations have also undermined any prospect of economic development in the tribal agencies. FATA was severely underdeveloped even before the rise of militancy due to government neglect, legal barriers and structural impediments to investment and private enterprise. With no economic regulation or proper courts, a black economy has flourished, notably a pervasive arms and drugs trade. Violence is now contributing to poverty, with the lack of jobs making FATA’s residents vulnerable to militant recruitment.
The military’s resort to indiscriminate force, economic blockades and appeasement deals is only helping the Taliban cause. The Pakistan government could win hearts and minds and curb extremism through broad institutional, political and economic changes to FATA’s governance. The government should dismantle the existing undemocratic system of patronage driven by political agents – FATA’s senior-most civilian bureaucrats – as well as tribal maliks (elders) who are increasingly dependent on militants for protection. It must enact and the international community, particularly the U.S., should support a reform agenda that would encourage political diversity and competition, enhance economic opportunity, and extend constitutionally guaranteed civil and political rights and the protection of the courts. Earlier attempts to counter extremism in the tribal areas had failed because they prioritised short-term gain over fundamental changes to the political and administrative set-up.
On 14 August 2009 President Asif Ali Zardari announced a reform package lifting restrictions on political party activity; curtailing the bureaucracy’s arbitrary powers of arrest and detention; excluding women and minors from collective responsibility under the law; establishing an appellate tribunal; and envisaging audits of funds received and disbursed by the auditor general. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government has described this reform package as the first step towards mainstreaming FATA, and much remains to be done. It must now swiftly implement these measures and, more importantly, take steps to fully incorporate the tribal areas into the federal constitutional framework, with provincial representation, legal protections under the Criminal Procedure Code and the national and provincial courts.
Donors, particularly the U.S., have allocated significant money for FATA’s development, but most is channelled through unaccountable local institutions and offices. This severely limits aid effectiveness and may even impede rather than encourage democratisation. The international community should recognise that the opponents of reform are not the people of FATA but the military and civil bureaucracies and the local elite, all of whom would lose significant powers if the government were to extend full constitutional and political rights to FATA.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Pakistan:

1. Repeal the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) 1901 in its entirety, replacing it with Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, in accordance with Article 8 of the constitution and internationally accepted human rights standards, including prohibition of collective punishment.
2. Extend full provincial rights to FATA by merging it with NWFP, in turn:

a)    merging the Frontier Regions adjoining Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and Peshawar districts with their connected districts;
b)    allocating seats for FATA’s seven tribal agencies in NWFP’s provincial assembly, with constituencies delimited by population, and devised after extensive consultations with stakeholders;
c)    allowing the NWFP provincial assembly and the National Assembly (lower house of the national parliament) to legislate FATA policy;
d)    eliminating the role of tribal jirgas (councils of elders) to hear civil and criminal cases, and establishing civil and criminal courts at the subdistrict and district levels, presided over by civil and criminal judges;
e)    allowing defendants the right to legal representation and appeal to higher courts, and extending the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court to FATA; and
f)     abolishing the FATA secretariat, the FATA Development Authority, and the office of the political agent, and transferring their authority to the NWFP secretariat, relevant provincial line ministries and district departments.

1. Establish a uniform judicial system across NWFP by repealing the Nizam-e-Adl 2009 that imposes Sharia (Islamic law) on NWFP’s Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA), and fully incorporating those districts into the provincial and national justice system.
2. Prioritise relief and rehabilitation to FATA’s internally displaced persons and engage in broad consultation with local and provincial leaders on a plan for relief, future reconstruction and resettlement with the goal of sustainable provision of public services, economic infrastructure and citizen protection through civilian led law enforcement and judiciary.
3. Disband khassadars (tribal police) and levies (official tribal militias) and absorb their members, after requisite training, into the NWFP police force, while strengthening the capacity of civilian law enforcement agencies to maintain law and order in the tribal agencies and the bordering Frontier Regions as well as NWFP’s settled districts.
4. Disband all lashkars (private militias) immediately and take action against any member guilty of abusing civilians’ rights.
5. Encourage private investment and economic growth by:

a)    developing the physical structure of the tribal agencies, including viable road networks, farm-to-market roads as well as energy and irrigation projects;
b)    facilitating interest-free loans and removing restrictions on lending to FATA residents;
c)    while the FCR remains in force, preventing any legal action against small and large businesses under the collective responsibility clause in FATA and NWFP, including forced closures, seizure of property and economic blockades against tribes;
d)    enabling private asset formation by implementing land reforms to partition collectively owned property and establish legal individual ownership through a transparent process, enforceable by regular courts;
e)    strengthening FATA’s public education system to make FATA’s students nationally competitive by raising teacher salaries in tribal agencies to higher levels than elsewhere in the country, improving school facilities, and inculcating strong written and verbal English-language skills; and
f)     Prioritise relief and rehabilitation of FATA’s IDPs.

To the U.S. and the Broader International Community:

1. Develop meaningful dialogue with the government on broad institutional reform to FATA’s governance, without which taxpayers’ money is unlikely to achieve the desired results.
2. Refrain from transferring control over development programs from international NGOs and other implementing partners to the Pakistan government until the FATA secretariat, the FATA Development Authority and the office of political agent are abolished and their authority transferred to the NWFP secretariat, relevant provincial line ministries and district departments.
3. Establish financial oversight mechanisms over donor-funded programs that do not rely on the political agents and tribal elites but instead include more representative and independent bodies such as national and NWFP-based NGOs with proven records of carrying out programs in FATA.
4. Linked to political reform, establish mechanisms for community and civil society participation along with provincial and national ministries in design of comprehensive FATA development plans covering small farm assistance, accelerated infrastructure construction, social service delivery, vocational training programs for FATA workers, particularly women, to make them more competitive in the local and national job markets and civilian police, judiciary and support for rule of law.
5. Join the Pakistan government, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and humanitarian NGOs in urgently preparing a comprehensive plan for IDPs in FATA expanding assistance to those displaced by conflict that assures domestic and international humanitarian access and their resettlement once citizen protection can be guaranteed.
6. Condition military aid on demonstrable steps by the military to support civilian efforts in preventing FATA from being used by extremist groups to launch attacks from Pakistani territory within its region and beyond; if the Pakistani military does not respond positively, consider, as a last resort, targeted and incremental sanctions, including travel and visa bans and the freezing of financial assets of key military leaders and military-controlled intelligence agencies.
7. Maximise the potential impact on proposed reconstruction opportunity zones (ROZs) by:

a)    expanding the commodities identified for duty-free status to include staples of the local economy such as leather goods, wool products, carpets and furniture; and
b)    requiring significant employment of FATA residents in companies participating in the program and where possible a preference for local FATA companies in program participation.

 A report by International Crises group for FATA 

Source ; http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6356&rss=1

All Kohat Cantonment Garrison Cinemas in Pakhtunkhwa are Being turned into Cheap Commercial Projects

While the Cantonments in Punjab are being up Graded into Cinema's like Jinnah Park in Rawalpindi and Installed with New Dolby Cinemas , the Policy of Punjabi Establishment is Entirely opposite and they are Turning the British Era old Cinemas of Pakhtunkhwa in Peshawar and Kohat and also in other Cities  into Cheap Commercial Projects that is both Tacky and Speaks volumes about the Plan to Turn the Pakhtunkhwa and its Resident into Wahabist/ Deobandi  Terrorist's  and also the Pukhtunkwa into a Terrorism Hub Deliberately due to policies that has a Deep rooted Meaning to use the Terrorist's against the Neighboring Countries  of Iran and Afghanistan from Launching Pad of Pukhtunkwa and Baluchistan 

KOHAT: All the four cinemas in Kohat city have been demolished replaced by commercial centres, thus depriving a large number of viewers of watching the movies on the big screen.

The cinemas were a big source of relaxation for the poor class which after daylong labour had an air-conditioned environment for as cheap as Rs50.

In the beginning families were attracted by the PAF cinema but with the passage of time, it also started playing Pashto movies featuring fights and violence which resulted in its downfall.

In early days, it screened English movies during three days of the week but then abandoned the practice. Now the young boys and families go to Islamabad to enjoy movies in quality picture houses even at the cost of paying many thousands of rupees.

Mohammad Hashim, a regular visitor to Islamabad with his friends, said the luxury of watching a movie at Islamabad cinemas was unique as the sound and screen were mind-blowing.

Two famous cinemas were owned by the army and the Pakistan Air Force, with the former constructed outside the walled city by the British as auditorium for their families in 1935.

It has been demolished and now converted into a marriage hall.

The PAF cinema also vanished with the time. Constructed in 1988 at a commercially ideal place at a corner plot it has been leased out to a private group of investors who have constructed a multi-storey plaza.

Still, only the structure has been completed but the shops are being sold like hot cakes starting from Rs6 million to Rs10 million on premium with monthly rent.

The oldest of all the cinemas was started with the name of New Royal in 1932 whose name was changed to Capital Cinema. Now, at its site stand a huge plaza, a hospital, a bank, and shops.

Haji Mohammad Akram, who owned the Flex Cinema, built in1944, while narrating the history of the picture houses, termed the phenomena as a dilemma, but said the dying industry could not support their families. He said that people were more interested in building shopping plazas and nobody was ready to take the risk of constructing Peshawar or Islamabad-like cinemas with millions of rupees as nobody would pay even Rs100 per ticket.

Historian Prof Mohammad Iqbal commented that historical places should be preserved with the help of the government. He regretted that those nations who did not remember their past were forgotten forever.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2019

Ref: https://www.dawn.com/news/1489690/kohats-all-four-cinemas-converted-into-commercial-centres

12 August 1948 Babrra Massacre, victims' families demand justice

The author is a Peshawar-based freelance journalist in Pakistan. He tweets @theraufkhan

A few days ago, the fourteenth Dalai Lama drew a lot of flak for saying that India would have remained a united country if Muhammad Ali Jinnah would have become the first prime minister of India. He regretted his statement later but the truth remains that many incidents that led to Partition (and followed it) will probably remain buried in the shrouds of time and ignorance. The Babrra Massacre in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan is one such incident, which happened 71 years ago on this day, and is rarely mentioned in the history books of either Pakistan or India. The relatives of the victims, many of whom were part of the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God or Red Shirts) led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan also known as Frontier Gandhi, continue to face consequences of the incident till now, years after communal politics divided the vast Indian land into two countries on the world map, and later into three with the formation of Bangladesh in 1971.

A brief history of Khudai Khidmatgars

Back in 1946, the British imperial government were in favour of a separate Muslim land based on religious philosophy. Pakistani socialist, author and son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, in his book Facts are Facts — The Untold Story of India's Partition, wrote that the first British loyalists formed the Muslim League which sowed the seeds of hatred in the centuries-old pluralistic Indian land. And then with the support of feudal, parachute and planted politicians and religious clergy, the imperialists created a state (Pakistan) based on religious ideology.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan with Jawaharlal Nehru when the Indian prime minister visited NWFP in 1946. Image courtesy: Bacha Khan Markaz

Till date, the religious philosophy, upon which Pakistan was crafted in 1947, has not been implemented in the country. The philosophy was probably a mere political slogan for a secular Jinnah and his mates.

The communal tussle, which forced mass migration and killing of innumerable people on both sides of Wagah and Atari, is a part of the shared history of Pakistan and India. The new generation of Pakistanis consider Partition and the consequent violence as a bleak chapter of human history. However, for the Pashtun-dominated North West Frontier Province (NWFP), now part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the history of violence is something they will not forget for a long time to come.

In 1947, the region, neglected by the British, was caught in the power tussle between India and Pakistan, and the Khudai Khidmatgars support for United India left them desolate; on the right side of history but on the wrong side of both Indian and Pakistani governments.

The Khudai Khidmatgars led by Khan (also known locally as Bacha Khan), were always staunch supporters of United India and opposed Lord Mountbatten's plan for a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan.

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan observing Mahatma Gandhi's 100 years at New Delhi in 1969. Image courtesy: Bacha Khan Markaz

The NWFP bordered Afghanistan with most of the residents being Pashtun/Pakhtun who spoke Pashto language. The region was deliberately kept backward by the British Raj to be used as a buffer zone because the residents were known for their resistance and warrior approach. Till 1930, there was not much political awareness in the region, but after Bacha Khan launched the Khudai Khidmatgar movement, indigenous people took keen interest in politics and joined him.

In 1937, Khudai Khidmatgars won the election and later in 1946, a year before Pakistan came into being, the party of anti-Partition Khudai Khidmatgars again won with an absolute majority.

But before the official announcement of Pakistan or Partition, the Muslim League started to topple the elected government of Khudai Khidmatgars including using undemocratic ways.

The position of the Muslim League was that since the Khudai Khidmatgars, represented by Bacha Khan, then chief minister of the province, didn’t attend the flag-hoisting ceremony of the newly formed state of Pakistan on 14 August, 1947, their loyalties to the nascent country of Pakistan were questionable. This was also the reason why the Pakistan government sacked the provincial government of Bacha Khan.

Others, however, dispute that view. A letter was written by Governor Lockhart to Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, in which he stated: “The Muslim League wants to dissolve Khan’s ministry before 15 August. Hence, I, along with my colleagues, decided that Pakistan government shall find a way for it. But I will be opposing any such act and it will be harmful to Pakistan.” (National Archives, Serial No 634, 11 August, 1947, page 161, Special Branch on 7 August).

On 10 August, 1947, Mountbatten wrote to Liaquat Ali Khan, “I am instructed by the Secretary of State that dismissing Dr Khan’s government will be undemocratic and unconstitutional”.

For harsher critics of what came next, it was the beginning of “horse trading” and unconstitutional decisions in Pakistan during Jinnah’s life. It is claimed that the new government of Pakistan sacked an elected provincial government. Further, it is said, the process was spearheaded by one of Jinnah’s important leaders, Qayyum Khan, in a ruthless manner. It must be noted that until at least 1945, Qayyum Khan himself was part of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement, and even dedicated his lone book (Gold and Guns on the Frontier) to Khan in 1944; he banned in later after becoming he replaced Bacha Khan as the chief minister of the province. It made the non-violent followers of Khudai Khidmatgar (street workers) furious but they did not resort to violence.

Ghazi gul mosque from where indiscriminate firing was done on Khudai Khidmatgar protesters on 12 August, 1947. Image courtesy Abdur Rauf Yousafzai

In his research paper on the Babrra Massacre, Professor Minhaj-ul-Hassan wrote: “In May 1948, the renowned anti-colonial leader of the Khudai Khidmatgars, Bacha Khan, had started his annual visit to villages and towns of NWFP after the participation in Legislative Assembly. He had been arrested in district Kohat’s Bahadur Khel village for three years under 40 FCR, of British draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations. The authorities in newly-formed Pakistan alleged that Bacha Khan was working on a plan along with the separatist militant Faqir of Ipi to topple the government."

The Khudai Khidmatgars passed four resolutions where they asked the government to provide details of the amount and receipt that Bacha Khan had given to separatist Faqir of Ipi, and that if the charges were proven they would separate from him, while also demanding fresh elections in the country.

The Khudai Khidmatgars workers also announced a peaceful protest against the illegal detention of Bacha Khan.

The State organs were against the protest and the provincial government deployed paramilitary forces and police in the area. They even set their guns and other heavy weapons on different buildings of Babrra village. The Khudai Khidmatgars workers also started to gather on the specific ground.

On the day of Babrra Massacre

On 12 August, 1948, a Khudai Khidmatgar worker, Speen Malang led a protest in Charsadda district of NWFP. As Malang marched holding high a red flag along with other protesters, indiscriminate firing began from the top of Ghazi Gul mosque. Malang fell, but the firing continued killing more than 600 Pashtuns both young and old and injuring over 1,200.

When both Pakistan and India were busy preparing for their first Independence Day celebrations, the Pashtun region of Pakistan was mourning the death of their loved ones.

“You have thrown us to the wolves,” the historical sentence of Bacha Khan after Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru voted in support of Lord Mountbatten's plan for Partition, echoed in the surrounding hills that day. No reconciliation took place, unfortunately, and the effects are felt till today.

Muhammad Tahir, a fourth-grade student at the time of the massacre, narrated the tragedy to this scribe in his own words. “We were at the school playground when we heard gunfire and thundering of heavy weapons. The teachers rushed us into classrooms,” 83-year-old Tahir said.

Muhammad Tahir, a fourth-grade student at the time of the massacre, narrated the tragedy to this scribe in his own words. Image courtesy Abdur Rauf Yousafzai

The firing had taken enough time leaving everyone terrified and unaware of the outside situation, Tahir recalled. He couldn’t remember the total time the firing lasted, as the shots ceased and everyone rushed towards their homes.

After the massacre

“The main door and other room doors were open, I shouted and cried when I saw no one was inside,” Tahir said. Then Tahir ran towards the incident ground where he saw his mother tearing her shawl and bandaging the injured to stop the bleeding. Calling it doomsday, Tahir said wives, sisters, and mothers were wailing, crying and shouting on the 12 August, 1948, "the ugliest day in Pakistan’s history".

Muflis Durrani's father was a tehsildar during the British rule but he left the illustrious job and started teaching at Azad School, which was formed by Khudai Khidmatgars, and became a freedom fighter. Durrani was also studying in a nearby school. At the time of Babrra Massacre, Durrani was inside the school building. When they visited the spot after the firing had stopped, all they saw were bodies and injured persons lying everywhere, said Durrani.

Muflis Durrani's father was a tehsildar during the British rule but he left the illustrious job and started teaching at Azad School, which was formed by Khudai Khidmatgars, and became a freedom fighter. Image courtesy Abdur Rauf Yousafzai

British atrocities against Pashtuns had continued even after the formation of the State of Pakistan, Durrani informed. After the shooting, most of the bodies were taken away and thrown into the river, he revealed, explaining why most families couldn’t bury their near and dear ones.

Chairman of Pashto Department at Abdul Wali Khan University, professor Sohail Khan, during his research work, met with some of the victim's families. Sohail recounts meeting Jaypur, 83, at Nowshera district's Mohib Banda village. Jaypur's father Surrendar was a staunch supporter of Khudai Khidmatgars. He was part of the protest and never returned home. Surrendar's body could not be found, like many others, and his death left the family in dire financial straits. For many months, Jaypur visited hospitals and graveyards but couldn't find his father's body.

In Charsadda district's Prang village, 70-year-old Murad Kaka’s father Sultan Khan was among the protestors. "We were waiting for father in our mud kitchen late in the night. As the disturbing news of shooting came from Babrra, I vaguely recall my mother and grandmother wearing tense faces as father arrived at midnight. My grandmother was very angry at him when my father said that I was busy digging graves and buried more than one person in each grave," Murad Kaka said.

Sohail said that the Qayyum Administration was charging Rs 50 per grave. He added that the government had also collected the expenses for this operation, and even the bullets, from Khudai Khidmatgars workers.

"The Babrra Masssacre was the result of British policy against Red Shirts," Aimal Wali great-grandson of Bacha Khan said.

"They still stigmatise, bomb with suicide bombers and kill us but we remain determined," he said firmly.

"Bacha Khan has prepared a force of non-violent red shirts who don’t have a breaking point, don’t step back, and don’t surrender," said Aimal recalling his great-grandfather's teachings.

Sohail sheds light on the reasons behind the Babrra Massacre, “The Pakistani state was created in the name of Islamic welfare and democratic state, it wasn’t in favour of selfish politicians, feudal and generals so they introduced a narrative that Pakistan was in the danger of diverting its attention from its problems and promises. That’s why the state's baseless narrative has never been challenged and if anyone does, he/she is labelled a traitor."

The professor says that it's hypocritical how in Pakistan's history books, Jallianwala Bagh massacre is widely publicised but the Babrra tragedy is not even mentioned since the State was involved.

The Indian National Congress, and particularly Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's relations with Bacha Khan didn’t remain loyal till the end. Sohail says that because of their bewafai Khudai Khidmatgars faced severe consequences and are still facing it.

It was another day of mourning when Bacha Khan, freed from jail, stood at the site of the massacre with people asking him to take revenge. However, Bacha Khan told Khudai Khitmatgars' workers that all those who want violence should leave him as he has pledged non-violence till his last breath and won’t deviate from it.

The Babrra Massacre was never investigated independently, which is why officially the Babrra incident lies under layers of dust even though the Awami National Party (ANP) formed by Bacha Khan and his followers demand a free and transparent inquiry of the bloody incident.

The current editor of Pakhtoon Magazine, which was founded by Bacha Khan in 1928, Hayat Roghani arranges theatre every year to tell the young generations about the sacrifices of Khudai Khidmatgars and state cruelty.

“Unfortunately Pashtun freedom fighters are labelled as traitors by the State of Pakistan and that’s why Bacha Khan spent 17 years in prison after Partition (he had already spent over 14 years in jail before that),” says Roghani.

"Bacha Khan is also deliberately kept out of Pakistani textbooks, but we tell to our young Pashtun that he and his Khudai Khidmatgars are heroes and champion freedom fighters," Roghani added.

Every year, a monument is built at the same spot to keep the history alive and pay tribute to those killed in the massacre. The party workers gather at the famous Ghazi Gul mosque, from where the security forces fired at the protesters and recall the sacrifices for democratic rights and supremacy of the Constitution.

Party general secretary Mian Iftikhar said that for Pashtun, the Babrra massacre is not over yet, as they lost more than 800 workers including the top leaders in a long war against militants and even now in the recent two elections they were not provided a level-playing field.

Published in First Post on 12 August 2018 

Newest U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan Mirrors Past Plans for Retreat- Divsion of Afghanistan.

Image : An Afghan Army soldier in Kabul, the capital, one of the urban population centers that a shift in strategy is meant to safeguard. Credit Mohammad Ismail/Reuters

Newest U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan- Division of Afghanistan and Giving control to Taliban of Half of Afghanistan , Via Efforts of Pakistan and its Creation Taliban and Arab Al-Qaeda Which Gifted American bases in Afghanistan. With Poppy /  Drugs/ Cocaine Cultivation and Export via Pakistan Ports and Airports as financial System to Fund the Taliban Governance Known as strategic Depth  to Crush the Independent Governance of Pashtuns Afghans who are Crushed on both sides of Durand line by the Punjabi Establishment and their Mineral Wealth and Natural Resources are plundered and looted by Pakistan and its Creation Taliban . Al-Qaeda / ISIS will be used to keep the Taliban in check via competition . 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is urging American-backed Afghan troops to retreat from sparsely populated areas of the country, officials said, all but ensuring the Taliban will remain in control of vast stretches of the country.

The approach is outlined in a previously undisclosed part of the war strategy that President Trump announced last year, according to three officials who described the documents to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity. It is meant to protect military forces from attacks at isolated and vulnerable outposts, and focuses on protecting cities such as Kabul, the capital, and other population centers.

The withdrawal resembles strategies embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations that have started and stuttered over the nearly 17-year war. It will effectively ensure that the Taliban and other insurgent groups will hold on to territory that they have already seized, leaving the government in Kabul to safeguard the capital and cities such as Kandahar, Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad.

The retreat to the cities is a searing acknowledgment that the American-installed government in Afghanistan remains unable to lead and protect the country’s sprawling rural population. Over the years, as waves of American and NATO troops have come and left in repeated cycles, the government has slowly retrenched and ceded chunks of territory to the Taliban, cleaving Afghanistan into disparate parts and ensuring a conflict with no end in sight.


When he announced his new war strategy last year, Mr. Trump declared that Taliban and Islamic State insurgents in Afghanistan “need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms.”

After the declared end of combat operations in 2014, most American troops withdrew to major population areas in the country, leaving Afghan forces to defend remote outposts. Many of those bases fell in the following months.


During a news conference last month in Brussels, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of the American-led coalition in Afghanistan, said remote outposts were being overrun by the Taliban, which was seizing local forces’ vehicles and equipment.

“There is a tension there between what is the best tactic militarily and what are the needs of the society,” General Nicholson said.

The strategy depends on the Afghan government’s willingness to pull back its own forces. A Defense Department official said some Afghan commanders have resisted the American effort to do so, fearing local populations would feel betrayed.

“Abandoning people into a situation where there is no respect for them is a violation of human rights,” said Mohammad Karim Attal, a member of the Helmand Provincial Council. “This might be the weakest point of the government that does not provide security and access to their people’s problems.”

Just over one-quarter of Afghanistan’s population lives in urban areas, according to C.I.A. estimates; Kabul is the largest city, with more than four million residents. Most Afghans live and farm across vast rural hinterlands.

Of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, the government either controls or heavily influences 229 to the Taliban’s 59. The remaining 119 districts are considered contested, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, disputed that American and Afghan forces were leaving rural areas and essentially surrendering them to the Taliban.

The intent was not to withdraw, Mr. Mohib said in an email, but to first secure the urban areas to allow security forces to later focus on rural areas.

Hundreds of Afghan troops are being killed and wounded nearly every week — many in Taliban attacks on isolated checkpoints. Over the last year alone, the number of Afghan soldiers, police, pilots and other security forces dropped by about 5 percent, or 18,000 fewer people, according to the inspector general’s office.

“This brings a very serious tension — when you’ve had significant loss of life, and blood and treasure,” said Paul Eaton, a retired two-star Army general who helped train Iraqi forces in the year after the 2003 invasion of Baghdad. “But it is time to say that we need a political outcome.”


Mr. Eaton said the plan to prod the Afghan military to abandon the unpopulated areas and retrench to cities is “a rational approach to secure the cities, and provide the Afghanistan government the political opportunity to work with the Taliban.”

The strategy for retreat borrows heavily from Mr. Obama’s military blueprint in Afghanistan after he began withdrawing troops from front lines in 2014.


Under President George W. Bush, and during Mr. Obama’s first term, the Pentagon established a constellation of outposts across Afghanistan, affirming that the American-led military coalition would fight the war in far-flung villages and farmlands.

In 2006, the United States Army set up a string of small bases in the Korengal Valley — an effort that was planned in part by General Nicholson, who was a colonel at the time.

But by 2009, an Army document outlined a shift from “attacking the enemy in remote areas” to “protecting and developing the major population centers” in eastern Afghanistan.

That approach began to take hold months later, in 2010, when American forces withdrew from the Korengal Valley after suffering bloody losses in isolated northeastern outposts. At the same time, however, United States Marines were surging into the rural areas of Helmand Province and the Army was pushing into the Taliban heartland in Kandahar.


In 2015, the Obama administration encouraged Afghan commanders to give up defending some of the most remote checkpoints and outposts that were seen as difficult to reclaim and hold. General Nicholson supported the idea after he took command in 2016, the official said.

Should Afghan troops pull back now, defending remote pockets of the country would mostly be left to the local police, which are more poorly trained than the military and far more vulnerable to Taliban violence. In some areas, police officers have cut deals with the Taliban to protect themselves from attacks.

Ghulam Sarwar Haidari, the former deputy police chief of northwestern Badghis Province, said his forces withdrew from the small town of Dara-e-bom after the Afghan National Army abandoned their outposts in past months. “We should lose 100 lives to retake that area,” he said.

Not all of the roughly 14,000 United States troops currently in Afghanistan have pulled back to cities. Some who are training and advising Afghan troops as part of Mr. Trump’s war strategy are stationed in bases in remote areas and smaller towns.

Mr. Trump has long called for ending the war in Afghanistan and only reluctantly accepted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s advice to send an additional 4,000 troops in an attempt to claim victory.

The Trump administration is also instructing top American diplomats to seek direct talks with the Taliban to refuel negotiations to end the war, and two senior Taliban officials said on Saturday that such talks had been held in Qatar a week ago. If they happen, the negotiations would be a major shift in American policy and would serve as a bridge to an eventual withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan.

Evan McAllister, a former reconnaissance Marine staff sergeant and sniper, fought in parts of Helmand Province in 2008 and 2011 — areas that are now almost entirely under Taliban control. He said trying to maintain an Afghan government-friendly presence in rural areas was, and still is, a “fool’s errand.”

“Attempting to control rural areas in Afghanistan always eventually ends up boiling down to simple personal survival,” Mr. McAllister said. “No strategic gains are accomplished, no populace is influenced, but the death or dismemberment of American and Afghan troops is permanent and guaranteed.”

Authors : C.J. Chivers contributed reporting. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, and Najim Rahim from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Printed / Source :  New York Times

China’s Global Building Spree Runs Into Trouble in Pakistan

By Jeremy Page and  Saeed Shah
July 22, 2018 1:27 p.m. ET

To fund a 70-nation infrastructure initiative, Beijing has been extending loans in opaque deals often contingent on using Chinese contractors and Trapping Pakistan in Debt Burdon that will only Benefit the Chinese Banks and also Arm Twist Pakistan into selling its Assets , like Gwadar Port for 99 Year Lease and Making Pakistan a slave Nation under Chinese Imperialism reminding of Ming Dynasty . 

The Punjabis Running Pakistan as Mullah and Military Alliances and the Right Wing Political parties like PTI , PML, MMA , MQM , PSP and Taliban Aligned Parties are all controlled by GHQ and they are selling the Assets of Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit and Baltistan Provinces that are out of Punjab for the Money making Schemes of Punjabis . 


LAHORE, Pakistan—Pakistan’s first metro, the Orange Line, was meant to be an early triumph in China’s quest to supplant U.S. influence here and redraw the world’s geopolitical map.
Financed and built by Chinese state-run companies, the soon-to-be-finished overhead railway through Lahore is among the first projects in China’s $62 billion plan for Pakistan. Beijing hoped the $2 billion air-conditioned metro, sweeping past crumbling relics of Mughal and British imperial rule, would help make Pakistan a showcase for its global infrastructure-building spree.
Instead, it has become emblematic of the troubles that are throwing China’s modern-day Silk Road initiative off course.

Deepening Debt

Pakistan’s external debt and the money it needs to borrow yearly have increased sharply, partly due to the infrastructure program China launched there in 2015.

Three years into China’s program here, Pakistan is heading for a debt crisis, caused in part by a surge in Chinese loans and imports for projects like the Orange Line, which Pakistani officials say will require public subsidies to operate.

China’s global plan, called the “Belt and Road Initiative,” involves some 70 countries and has been likened to the U.S. Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II. By building a network of ports, railways, roads and pipelines, China aims to open new East-West trade routes, generate business for Chinese companies and expand its strategic influence.

While the Americans mainly used grants in Postwar Europe, China has mostly extended loans in opaque deals often contingent on using Chinese contractors. Pakistan is now one of several countries grappling with the financial and political fallout of taking on so much Chinese debt.

With a general election in Pakistan scheduled for July 25, an ascendant opposition is pledging to publish secret details about the financing of Chinese projects, including the Orange Line, and Pakistani industry is agitating for less-generous perks for Chinese companies.

Pakistani authorities have fallen behind on payments for electricity from new Chinese power projects—the bulk of the infrastructure program—because of longstanding problems getting Pakistanis to pay their bills, according to a senior Pakistani official.

The problems are expected to come to a head by early fall, when Pakistan’s new government is likely to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, the nation’s first since 2013, according to Pakistani officials. Such a bailout would likely include restrictions on borrowing and spending, the officials say, which would force the country to curtail its Belt and Road program with China, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.

That would be a big embarrassment for China, which has portrayed its plan as a game-changer for this chronically unstable nation of 200 million—and a chance to prove the benefits of its development model to other nations.

Game Changer?

Three years into China's $62 billion infrastructure program in Pakistan, about half of the planned projects have been started.“You’re then effectively having the West bail out this country,” says Andrew Small, an expert on China-Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund, a Washington think tank. “If this is where Pakistan ends up financially, I think that’s going to be a big kind of black mark against the entire Belt and Road.”
It also would give the U.S., the largest contributor to the IMF, a strong influence over China’s plans in Pakistan. Washington has been pushing back against what U.S. officials have called Beijing’s “debt-trap diplomacy.”
European Union and Indian officials also have stepped up criticism of Belt and Road, saying it lacks transparency and sustainability and is designed to expand China’s strategic influence.
“The Ming Dynasty appears to be their model, albeit in a more muscular manner, demanding other nations become tribute states, kowtowing to Beijing,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in June.
Chinese President Xi Jinping rejects such criticism, telling a conference in April his infrastructure program was neither a Chinese conspiracy nor a would-be Marshall Plan, but an attempt to build a “community of shared future.”
China’s foreign ministry said in a written statement to The Wall Street Journal that its Pakistan program remained a model for Belt and Road countries. “Naturally, it will have to adapt to changing conditions, and necessary adjustments will be carried out,” it said, adding that China was in close contact with Pakistan on its financial situation.
China's Infrastructure Initiative
China is building and financing a global network of trade and energy links to fill gaps in existing infrastructure spanning Asia, Europe and Africa.

In Malaysia, the second-biggest recipient of Belt and Road loans after Pakistan, a new government suspended work this month on a $20 billion Chinese railway project and is reviewing other Chinese projects. Myanmar is trying to renegotiate a $10 billion Chinese port project. Nepal has halted plans for two Chinese-built hydroelectric dams since November.
Chinese projects in Pakistan now vulnerable to chopping include an $8 billion railway upgrade central to Beijing’s vision of a new overland trade route, which would link China’s northwest to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, Pakistani officials say. The upgrade aimed to double the average speed on 1,170 miles of track between the port of Karachi and the northern city of Peshawar.
“I can’t see how the money would be repaid” for the upgrade, says one senior Pakistani official involved in discussions with China.

The IMF also would likely require Pakistan’s new government to be more transparent about existing CPEC projects. Critics of the outgoing government accused it of channeling funds to wasteful political projects, often in opaque deals, without competitive bidding.
“Deals like the Orange Line cannot be secret,” says Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, spokesman for the main opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. He says his party backed CPEC but wanted all agreements put before the parliament for review.

Pakistan’s outgoing government blames its debt crisis on an overvalued rupee, and it questions Western motives in criticizing Chinese loans. “Before China came along, they weren’t worried about Third World debt,” says Miftah Ismail, the departing finance minister.
The U.S. helped build Pakistan’s infrastructure in the 1950s and 60s, when it saw the country as a Cold War ally. More recently, Washington focused on other economic aid and security assistance to fight groups such as the Taliban.

All Benefits to Chinese Banks and IMF and Punjab in Pakistan 

With the U.S. freezing all security aid and winding down economic support this year, Pakistani officials now say its financial future lies in emulating China’s emergence as a low-cost manufacturing hub. CPEC, they say, will ease energy and transport bottlenecks, paving the way for Chinese-style “special economic zones” to lure foreign investors.

Thousands of Chinese nationals are working on China’s infrastructure program Pakistan, including at a giant coal mine and power project in the Thar desert in Sindh province.
Thousands of Chinese nationals are working on China’s infrastructure program Pakistan, including at a giant coal mine and power project in the Thar desert in Sindh province.

Beijing and Islamabad say that of 43 CPEC projects due to be finished by 2030, around half—worth $19 billion—are completed or under way, including a dozen power plants. Much of the infrastructure is badly needed, especially the energy projects, which will help ease Pakistan’s chronic electricity shortages.

Even so, some ministers in the outgoing government said in interviews they should have negotiated better terms with China, and been more open about details.

Official figures reviewed by the Journal show that Chinese-backed power plants were promised annual returns on investment of up to 34%, guaranteed by Pakistan’s government, in dollars, for 30 years.

There is skepticism about government forecasts that CPEC will boost economic growth from 5.8% this year to 7% by 2023, allowing Pakistan to service its debt. A March IMF report blamed Pakistan’s rising current-account deficit and external debt obligations partly on CPEC, and predicted growth would flatline at 5% until 2023.

“The new government will have to do some adjustment, with us or without us,” says Teresa Daban, the IMF representative in Pakistan.

Pakistan could seek a bailout from China. Chinese banks have already provided $3 billion in emergency funds, at commercial rates, to stabilize Pakistani foreign-exchange reserves, Pakistani officials say.

Nadeem Javaid, chief economist of Pakistan’s planning ministry, suggests China should rescue Pakistan with an interest-free loan. “It would be a kind of favor,” he says. If not, “for what do we have this friendship?”

Another senior Pakistani official says an IMF bailout would need to be $8 billion to $10 billion. The outgoing government, he says, “made lots of attempts” to negotiate a Chinese bailout instead, but the Chinese disengaged in recent weeks because they wanted to deal with the new government after the election.

A Chinese bailout could keep Beijing’s plans intact but would set a worrying precedent. Chinese banks have provided at least $200 billion of loans to Belt and Road projects since 2013, Chinese officials say.

The rationale has been partly to generate better returns for Chinese banks than they can obtain at home, and to drum up overseas business to use China’s surplus industrial capacity.
Gwadar, a port on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Gwadar, a port on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Some Chinese bankers and officials, though, are growing more concerned about the financial risk of Belt and Road projects, according to people familiar with those discussions.

In its latest guidance to Chinese companies investing in Pakistan, published in March, China’s tax administration warned that Pakistan’s capacity to repay debts “is extremely low.” Returns on Chinese investments in Pakistan were “very low, and some may become bad debts,” it said.
A Chinese bailout could feed worries that Beijing is using Belt and Road to extract onerous concessions, including equity in strategically important assets.

Sri Lanka’s government, unable to repay a Chinese loan for a port in Hambantota city, last year granted a Chinese state company a 99-year lease on the facility. U.S. and Indian officials have long thought China wants a naval outpost there, which China denies.

Trade Imbalance

China’s trade surplus with Pakistan has grown by more than 400% since the two countries signed a free-trade agreement in 2006.

They now suspect China could do the same at Gwadar, a port on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast that is part of CPEC and that Chinese and Pakistani officials say is purely commercial.

Some diplomats believe Beijing will keep throwing money at Pakistan, regardless of the returns. China and Pakistan have had close ties since the 1950s, when each saw the other as a counterweight to India.

More recently, China has been anxious to prevent Islamic extremism spreading from Pakistan into China. Still, China’s goals depend on political stability in Pakistan, which requires strong economic growth to create jobs.

One problem is that Pakistan has yet to establish any of the planned “special economic zones.” With local business wary of Chinese competition, provincial governments won’t agree to generous incentives China wants for its private companies to invest in them.

The Karakoram Highway, which China helped to build between 1959 and 1979 and is now upgrading, is the only land route between Pakistan and China.

The Karakoram Highway, which China helped to build between 1959 and 1979 and is now upgrading, is the only land route between Pakistan and China.

Many Pakistani and Chinese business leaders are skeptical about Pakistan’s potential as a trade route, especially if railway upgrades are canceled. The only land route across the border into western China is a two-lane road over the 16,000-foot Khunjerab Pass. It is closed four months of the year by snow, and passes through a region claimed by India. On a recent visit, a Journal reporter saw little traffic.
At the other end of the proposed route, Gwadar has failed to attract significant cargo traffic.

A visiting Journal reporter found that work hadn’t started on a planned power plant and airport. Locals complained of a shortage of jobs and drinking water.

Chinese officials have grown accustomed to the security challenges in Pakistan. It is the politics that frustrates them more.

They single out the Orange Line, which wasn’t in the original CPEC plan. It was added at the insistence of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who saw it as a vote winner in Punjab, his power base. China eventually agreed, with Premier Li Keqiang describing it as a “gift,” Pakistani officials say.

Shehbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab province and brother of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, lobbied personally for the Orange Line and attended a test run in May.

he Export-Import Bank of China provided a $1.6 billion loan—local media reports pegged the interest rate at just 2%—on the condition the contract went to two state-run Chinese companies. They were exempted from income tax, sales tax and import duties on construction materials.

Sibtain Halim, Pakistan’s official in charge of the Orange Line, says no other countries expressed interest in bidding. He says the project will benefit Lahore but will require government subsidies, although how much remains unclear because ticket prices haven’t been decided.

Opposition parties complained that CPEC disproportionately benefited Punjab. To appease them, China agreed in late 2016 to build metros for three more cities—Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi—each controlled by opposition parties and often racked by violence.

Beijing had hoped the Orange Line and other early projects would be finished in time to help secure victory for Pakistan’s ruling party in July, according to people involved. Last year, however, Nawaz Sharif was dismissed as prime minister and this month was sentenced to 10 years in jail for corruption.

Work on the Orange Line was halted for 22 months after a legal challenge from activists who said it came too close to historic sites. Chinese officials were “perplexed,” says one person involved in the project. “They said that in China, no one can touch a government project.”

Although work resumed in December, the opposition continues to demand investigations into Orange Line contracts.

“The real reason for building these loss-making megaprojects has always been massive kickbacks,” Imran Khan, the main opposition leader, said on Twitter in March.

The Sharifs, and Pakistani and Chinese officials, deny that, and Mr. Khan has produced no proof. The controversy leaves Beijing in an uncomfortable spot as Pakistan’s military appears to have thrown its weight behind Mr. Khan.

At an Orange Line test run in May, Shehbaz Sharif —Nawaz’s brother and his party’s new candidate for premier—repeated a promise to build metros for Karachi and Peshawar, despite Pakistan’s debt crisis.

“My crime is that I made this Orange Line for the people,” Shehbaz told supporters, standing in front of a banner decorated with his portrait alongside President Xi’s.

Writers :  Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com and Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com

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Pakhtunkhwa Police Reforms Myth and Reality

Politics is the art of perception management. Politicians often employ the old tried and tested advertisement techniques of repeating certain phrases or sentences umpteen times till the listeners believe them as a matter of truth. “We made police misali in the K-P province” is one such piece of mythology that has become an essential part of list of achievements presented by Imran Khan. I am proud of serving the police department for almost 30 years but in my capacity as a former home secretary and having held senior positions in the K-P police, I deem it as my duty to put the record straight by differentiating the myth from reality.

The last two governments that served the province were of the PTI (2013-2018) and the ANP (2008-2013). I would, therefore, briefly review the nature of reforms introduced by these two governments and the financial injections provided in each of the tenures.

Let us first look at the situation that existed in the country and the K-P province in 2008. The Taliban outfits had established parallel governments in many districts of K-P province and were regularly attacking personnel and premises of the law-enforcement agencies. In such an environment of real and imminent danger, the then provincial ANP government rightly considered revamping and rebuilding of the police department its top priority. It, therefore, developed a “Comprehensive Development Strategy and Post Needs Crisis Assessment Programme” with the assistance of the World Bank. As money makes the mare go, the ANP government enhanced the budget of the police besides increasing its Annual Development Programme. We can notice that financial resource allocation reached its peak in 2010-11 during the ANP’s government. With more finances available, the police force acquired better human resource as the number of police personnel swelled to 75,000 in 2013 from 32,000 in 2006-7, which is a staggering increase of 134 per cent. In order to achieve reforms-related targets, a ‘Project Coordination Unit’ was also established which empowered the police force to initiate and run its developmental schemes.

Besides recruitment, capacity building was another important strategic priority for the-then ANP government. As the existing training centres could not accommodate such huge numbers, arrangements were made in collaboration with the Army for imparting training. Another strategic priority was to raise a counterterrorism force and within a short span of time a highly trained Anti-terrorism Elite Force was raised with 7,000 members. In the same period, a state-of-the art ‘Joint Training Centre’, with the assistance of the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, was built in Nowshehra which is now the main training feeder for the anti-terrorism personnel. The Directorate of Counter Terrorism was established which played a crucial role in bringing hundreds of terrorists to justice and in preparing a database of 3,500 militants with 350 of them being the highly wanted terrorists. To improve the physical infrastructure, the damaged buildings of the police in the whole of Malakand were reconstructed under the US-assisted Rule of Law and Peace Building programme. In a nutshell, by 2013, a highly well-developed police system was in place to tackle the law and order situation.

Now let us turn to the 2013-18 period of the PTI government and examine what specific reforms were initiated and executed by this government. PTI leader Imran Khan, in his speeches, and also in the manifesto, had vowed that the Station House Officer (SHO) system would be replaced by the US-styled sheriff system where the SHOs would be elected by the local people. Nothing of such sort came about in the PTI’s era. We, however, did see some pictures being splashed on social media pages of the party showing a model police station on the pattern of police stations in the developed countries to create a perception that the K-P police have been modernised to an extent. The reality on ground is that the buildings of main police stations in Peshawar, let alone smaller cities, are still in dilapidated condition. People, however, did see greater presence of traffic police personnel but that was possible due to the additions made to the police force by the previous government. Therefore, the credit should go to whom it belongs. In the PTI’s tenure, the police force’s strength reached 82,000, thus registering an increase of 9 per cent which dwarfs in comparison with what the ANP government did in its tenure. The ‘Directorate of Counter Terrorism’ was renamed as ‘Counter Terrorism Department’ making it a focal agency against terrorism and thus relieving the police stations. Hence, the main channel of collecting intelligence and interaction with the community was absolved of its duties. The much-needed forensic lab got completely neglected while the safe city project did not either materialise for improving policing in the KP province.

In terms of financial support, we can see from figures that the growth momentum fell sharply and reached its lowest in 2015-2016 during the PTI’s government. Rather than introducing any substantive reforms, a high-pitched and well-organised propaganda was unleashed to create a perception that the previous government had done very little to provide peace and security to the people. The comparative analysis would, however, make it clear that myths can’t stand long when exposed to the light of facts and evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2018.

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How I, a Punjabi, was brainwashed with anti-Pashtun bigotry. And how I unlearnt it

When's Pakistan was being made  in 1947 , there was no Muslim League Sir  jinah or Sir Allama iqbal known in Pashton lands or  having any real power in the elected Leadership of Pashtons. Lands , or any power in elected Assemblies over then till 1947 .

Muslim league was non existent here in elected Assemblies but was represented by a few bureaucrats and servants of British like some Sahbizadas , Khan Bhudurs and Arababs etc title holders of British like Sahbizada Abdul Qayum a Qadiani of Topi Swabi or some Mullahs on pay role of British in Jameet ulema hind some Deobandi agents of British.

The only representation Muslim league had was , maybe less than 6  seats in both provinces  of Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan which was one and same  at that time. As name Baluchistan name did not come till 1971 when new constitution of Pakistan was made by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto  ......

Out of hundreds of elected Pashtons in Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and Baluchistan Assmbly called state of Kalat at that time in 1947 which ,was Nationalist and reformist party of  Awami national Party of Bacha Khan, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan is forgotten and not mentioned in text books of Pakistan but history is not taught in Pakistan but a fed lies in as Pakistan Studies ..

Muslim league that were never Voted by Pashtons and balauchis  in 1947 ,  in fact the elected Asemblies of Baluchistan was bombed with Artillery by Pakistan Army and Air force in 1947 -48 , Air force  was used to destroy the session of parliament ,when we are gifting Kashmir our human rights were being trampled.
The Pakhtunkhwa elected Asembly was discharged with out any reason in dictatorial manner by Sir jinnah in 1947 being a non elected head of newly formed Pakistan in partner ship with British was discharging and sending home elected leaders of Pashtons in Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan . FATA people were directly under bureaucrats as slaves in 1947 till today .

As it was British who put all the Congress people in jail and jinnah and Muslim leaguers  never went to jail and was allotted British titles as a loyalist and kept as loyal servants to British   .

We Pashtons joined Pakistan  because of our own will and for love of  Islam as we did not wanted India which was far away and not geographically joined with us with Pakistan in.between .

Afghanistan was not even  offered as a choice , by the British conducting referendum we did not love or like sir  jinnah or  sir iqbal  wearing British dresses and looked more of a Kala sahib replacing a white Gora sahib a British agent than a leader who was  working for Islam .

But we were already a  free Nation at times of partition in 1947 but we did a grave mistake in that referendum by believing in Punjabis and their leaders and we are still paying for our mistake every day every hour to this day .

We should have not  belived in Religion but should have gone for Pashton Nationalism and we did a foolish mistake that reminds us every day that why we are prejudiced and hated because of that mistake in believing in Islam .

75 years have passed but we are never Accepted as Real Pakistani by Punjabis  . We face  bias and Racism and   inequality as We don't have  a fair constitution of Pakistan over us for more than half of our Pashton population and Pashton areas .

We are treated by a special Draconian and degrading and insulting laws call FCR frontier crimes regulation a set of 40 laws made by Lord curzon viceroy of Britain in 1800 ,a , these same laws at applied by Kala sahib Punjabis  to this day on Pashtons

We gave 100 percent Kashmir as a gift  to Pakistan in 1947 and kept All of Kashmir for Pakistan  up to 1949 for Pakistan and Indian a
Army was shamed and defeated by us  , 

But the Punjabis shamelessly ,   later gave  60 % of Kahmir was given back to India  by Punjabi leader Mr Laiqat Ali  to India without a single shot being fired as a gift in 1949 what we call Indian occupied Kashmir now or IOK and that gift is with India to this day.

The shame continues ,  even today the Pakistan Army cannot take IOK ,  back to Pakistan from India ,  with its atomic power , and being 4th  largest and strongest Army in the world  , it has lost all the wars it fought over Kashmir in 1965, 71, Kargil and also war on terror it cannot be victorious but a looser Army  vet it celebrates all it as victories as defence day when it lost all th wars and it would never celebrates the 1947 war which we won and got Kashmir for Pakistan .

it supports terrorists like  Punjabi Taliban Lashkar toiba or jhangavi , over Kashmir and Afghanistan but they are killers and terrorists  loosers who cannot do thier job as We did for Pakistan as Pashtons

All Pashtons , who did not all go to war in Afghanistan and Kashmir if we all go together  the world will be at our feet as promised by God as Bani Israel when we were evicted from Israel by orders of God . But he promised any land we out our feet on and it stands true to this as it will of God .

We saved Pakistan from USSR , and we fought  alongside , Arab Jihadists and Islamist who were brought on our lands as guests  by the same Punjabis who did not offer Punjab to there foreign guests and was out of bound for Arabs and Afghans. So much for Pan Islamism bull shit ...

Punjabis  asked us to forget ourselves and become Muslims or Bedoos Nation  and promoted Pan Arabian Islamism philosophy cunningly which does not exist as we are not even considered as brother by the same gulf countries and Arabs counties and concept of Islamic brother hood  lies only in books not in reality and in world today.

Pashton are only fools who believe in Pan Islamism bull shit  even the Punjabis don't believe in it when it comes to Pashtons and Balauchis ..as Punjabis  running the country we are never Muslims in Pakistan when treated by Punjabis.

We did fight for Pakistan as after Afghanistan it was Pakistan they wanted and our lands of Pashtons were there , then Arab countries and it's oil and warm waters oil fields was the  ultimate target. We saved the Pakistan Arabs  and the Punjabis brothers and sisters with our blood and usa too from Soviets and communsim.

Pashtons destroyed Soviet union and we liberated the Europe from Iron curtain fell because of us as the  Berlin Wall and it became one United Europeans union because of us and it was no more Soviets and communists in the world because of us Pashtons .

Punjabis was saved from Soviets and Europe liberated  was made one and United with more than 3 dozen counties made as one United Europe , the  Berlin wall fell and people were United in Europe with lost families and relatives .  Americans were saved from global super power Soviet union with its Atomic weapons .

Arabs  progressed  peacefully and they made tall buildings envy of the world with our the Russians , and great progress  was made in GCC in  Dubai Saudia,  as we saved them  and what we got ? Nothing but disability deaths and poverty and we were left tp collect the garbage for Punjabis with donkey carts and drivers of transport  and security guards and boot polisher cobblers of Punjabis and Arabs in Gulf countries.

The American and the  world celebrated and Arabs who paid dollars for dollar with Americans , became victors  Liberators and heroes with Americans as their partners celebrating  and they were never called terrorists or called bad names neither was the Punjabis .. Punjabis were called brothers Allies of USA  and partners in NATO ...

.. Only The Punjabis and it's ISI declared themselves  as  victors and only Heroes victorious over Sovietes getting all the glory from us and forgetting us Pashtons  in celebrations .

We Pashtons were left in poverty neglect by all of them including Pakistani Punjabis , who started fearing us and despising and hating us as a Dog and called us Terrorists and criminals.

We were hated by Punjabis , Arabs and American and Europeans for whom we sacrificed so much even we are not involved in 9/11 or any European terrorism .

We would loose our Homes ,families brothers and sisters our lands , our business and our honour for being a patriotic Pakistani .

It's is said Give a Dog a Bad Name and Kill it and we were , exactly treated like that , worse then dogs from 1947 to now , no mention exists in Paki media or history  of our Kashmir victories and 1947 -49 was and it's  liberation in Pakistan ,

No mentions of history of Pakistan Studies of our defeat of Soviet union and  fall  of communism or the liberation of Europe because of Pashtons

Or our sacrifices then and now on fake war on terror , which is nothing but war on Pakhtons ,  we are bad Dogs and that has to be killed , hated and despised .

We become IDPs on our lands and we have become the largest on Earth or universe displaced Pashtons as IDP  and out of their homes....

and yet when Pakistan budget is passed we are given not a single extra  Rupee by Punjabis  as measure as token of sympathy or empathy or  appreciation ,.recently in latest government of PTI , that is a party made by Punjabis for the punjabi  establishment under Punjabi domiciled imme Taliban  Khan ,

half of Budget of Pakhtunkhwa was lapsed in amount of 100 Billion rupees out of 200 billion  that was given back to Punjabis as a gift by Punjabi imme Taliban  Khan Sahib back to  federation run by Punjabis and it's establishment as a policy .

PTI criminals Punjabi establishment backed right wing parties , to cover that 100 Billion deficit ,  PTI took loans that have to be paid back with huge interest  from IMF and world bank's , resulting in more taxes and poverty on just Pashtons but not on Punjabis ,

burdening  a province that is active in war , and destruction ,  being destroyed every day and blown up , this is what you get as token of appreciation.

There is no money for us but a lot of money for Army Basses on our lands snatched from Pashtons ,  who were not ready to sell and who resisted were either made Disappeared missing Persons or declared  terrorists and killed in fake police encounters

Pakistani media controlled by Punjabi establishment  looked the other way conveniently as it serves as the prostitute to the establishment as people say , it cares shit about humanity or human rights or even citizens of Pakistan as We are sometimes called by mistake .

Most of terrorists even if there are actually are Pashtons who are one as Gul Khans , who  follow the Punjabi mullahs like that of Raiwind , Mansoora and Wafiq ul madarissahs all run by Punjabi mullahs of Takht I Lahore as we call the Punjabis establishment , and Loyal puri faislabadis  ,

Terrorists Punjabi establishment  lashkars toiba lahoris or jhangavi loyal puris faisalabadi  Punjabis , are all translations of Pakistan Army as  Lashkar toiba in Arabic is translated as Pakistan Army ,

Pashtons are all misled by Punjabis mullahs with connections with Punjabis establishment , led by them to kill our own blood and Pashtons  in Af-pak area of Pakhtunkhwa , fata and Baluchistan on this side of durrand line and over other side of durrand line we kill in Pashton dominated area Afghanis for the love of Pakistan and punjabi who treat us like dogs and shit .

Half of our nation has its ID cards and Pakistani nationality blocked and we are not even considered Pakistani , and other half has had no rights since 1947 , as there is no constitution on half of our people in 7 FATA and PATA  divisions / Agencies ( total 14)  and another 6 FR areas / Districts are not even counted as citizens of Pakistan and under Article 247 , we are not entitled to Pakistani constitution at all , neither any of its human or basic rights of objective resolution allows to that half of our population at all .

Yet we are supposed to call ourselves as Pakistani and have to prove our loyality and face the bias and racism and hate of punjabi establishment ,

Same terrorists are supported by the Punjabis establishment and they have become rich riding in 20 million Land cruisers each and all of them and we real citizen of Pakistan are Facing the brunt of Racism and bias and hate , loosing our Homes and lands and our families and everything we have for what ?? For nothing

Punjabi establishment has decided that they will use the brutal methods against us Pashtons  they want to make a another division between Pakhtons and Afghanistan like  Wahga in Torkham where they Punjabis army men would show the under wears to Afghanis , when they raise their feet to sky ...........as they show to Indians at Wahaga each day at Sunset by Marching and raising their feet to the sky in a comical ceremony that has become a media spectacle .

The syllabus of Punjabis in schools is full of Hate of Pashtons. And we are traitors in books taught to children in Punjab . And they are not just books but official Text books ..

Have after 75 years Will never go away and will remains and no efforts is under way to rectify it even when we saved the Punjabis in 1965 , 71 , Kargil and in words of a Khan who gave Atomic power to Pakistan Abdul Qadir khan , "" I am not treated like equal Pakistani like the punjabis """, he was disgraced by the Punjabis establishment recently for sacrificing his life for, making us strong after humiliating defeat in 1971 war and making Pakistan Atomic power.

He said in one of his Article , that Punjabis are thinking of Enslaving Afghanistan and Pashtons as Fifth Province and dreaming about it and forgetting Alexander , Changez Khan , Romans , British , Rusians and now the Americans who lost in.Humiliation to Pashtons  , Punjabis and it's establishment may be next on the list soon as things are going .

Here is a letter of Punjabis to Pashtons , in all its sincerity , hats off to him or her who did not publish name .

Dear Pashtuns,

I am a Punjabi who has been living in the capital of Punjab for almost four years. I am studying both politics and sociology simultaneously at the University of Punjab, Lahore. I know very little about your culture and political beliefs but, for sure, I know more than any ordinary Punjabi . I am sharing my educational background and familiarity with your culture and politics to demonstrate one very important thing which I am intending to discuss in this piece: politics and social philosophy of life. 

We know your loyalty is beyond any doubt, your dedication, passion, and commitment with your assigned goals do not need any certification. And your sense of self-esteem is probably the thing the whole Pakistan is proud of.

You did a lot for Pakistan, for Afghanistan, for Saudi Arabia, for America and for the whole world. But in return you got blood, pain and a bad-name. Hold on… this is not what God has done with you. This is what humans, your so-called brothers, did with you.

There was a time when Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the father of the nation, trusted you and gave you both respect and responsibility. And what you returned us was probably something our strongest army wouldn't be able to give us. I, like the father of the nation, feel proud of you. 

But since 1980s you were used, misused, exploited, maimed, beheaded, murdered and ultimately declared as the biggest terrorists of the world. All this happened when you were fighting a ‘holy war’ for the capitalist America to defeat the atheistic Soviet Union under the leadership of Zia and his Saudi brothers. Americans gave dollars, Saudis surfaced ideological grounds, and Zia being a strategist devised murderous strategies to fight this war. As a result, the Soviets were white-washed, America came out as the sole superpower of the world, Zia went away to meet his awaiting- seventy two virgins and Saudis  joined Americans to celebrate their victory. 

You remember you were ‘jihadists’. You were ‘ghazis’. You were brothers of Zia. But you were so as long as there was war. At the end of the war you were zombies, terrorists, and the biggest enemies of peace of the world.

This is a sad story. This is a bitter past which dominates the bloody present. This is what your brothers did with you.  

The important question remains: who got what from this war? Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are paying the heaviest price of their bravery and love for their brothers and friends. A harsh reality of the day! 

This is what happened in history. I can’t change it. Nor can you or anyone else. We have to accept it. 

Let’s talk about other things. Why do we, Punjabis, not regard you as trustworthy friends? There is a reason behind this mistrust and awkwardness. I still remember when I was a child I used to go out almost all the time. My mother used to assert: ‘Do not go out. There are Pathans in town and they will take you with them.’ And believe me I used to be very scared of you whenever I heard about your presence. 

Then I came to Lahore and here what I initially learnt was so scary: “Pathans are dirty. They love ‘naswar’, smoke, and eat tasteless food and follow stupid things. Girls don’t like them. Most of them are gay, so try to avoid them as much as you can.” This is what I learnt from my friends, their friends and from lay public. 

Unfortunately, when I formally joined my university I had a very bad image of the Pathan in my mind. I remember in my first ever class at the campus when I saw that there were some Pathans in my class I was just thinking so many bad things about them: abductors, heartless, homosexuals…

With all this I started reading with them and reluctantly interacted with them. I started finding things contrary to what I had learnt. They were more loving than Punjabis, more loyal than anyone else in my social circle, more intelligent, more outspoken and more concerned about Pakistan than us. This is what I learnt about Pashtuns in my own classroom and through my extensive interaction with them. 

Moreover, I read about you. I was interested to learn about your culture including marriage system, badal (the concept of revenge) and everything about Pakhtunwali. I found you people with a strong sense of identity in a Pakistan where everyone else is struggling with his/herself because of identity crisis.  

I was lucky to get a chance to stay at Peshawar University when I was selected as a participant of Third International Summer School. I ate your traditional foods and took the same tea. I love Afghani Pulao and want to visit again my friends, Sajid and Abid in Peshawar. 

The bottom line is, dear Pashtun friends, you have been stereotyped in a very bad manner in Pakistan. Who did it? I really don’t know. But I know it has been done so smartly that there must always be a dividing line in Pakistan between “us” and “them”.

Image Courtesy: Pakistan Today

The sadder part is that now terrorists are being profiled on racial basis and so many Punjabis believe Pashtuns are bad people; violent extremists. Our police is issuing notices and warning us to report if we see any Pathan selling tea in their traditional outlook. I am sad to read this notice. All this made me teary-eyed. 

I wrote this letter to convey my love, not any sympathy, because I know you people neither need nor like it. I am a Punjabi who believes you people are misrepresented, misread and misused. I am a Punjabi who urges you to come here and interact with common Punjabis and let them know what they believe is absolutely incorrect. Come here and teach these people how to love, what it means to be sincere, what it means to be Pakistani and most of all tell them what it means to be Pashtun .

God bless you!

Published in the Nation newspapers , on 27 Feb 2018. By a Punjabi who did not care to mention his or her name  -     https://nation.com.pk/27-Feb-2017/how-i-a-punjabi-was-brainwashed-with-anti-pashtun-bigotry-and-how-i-unlearnt-it